Plannerry. I think when we were planning the conference, we always like to bring our heavy hitters out. And i think today is one of those occasions in which we have a collection of fine scholars and activists here to address our theme. So what we decided to do is run the plannerry more as a roundtable, as a moderated conversation about issue with the great migration. And i wanted to introduce our panelists and give them an opportunity to speak for a few minutes as far as their own work and their perceptions and ideas about the great migration and then move on into a question and answer followed by a discussion with us and followed by a question answer session with the audience. So i want to introduce our panelists. Our first pannestist is joe trotter who is a giant eagle professor of history in social justice and past History Department chair at cornegy university in pittsburgh. He is also the director and founder of the cornegy center for africanamerican urban studies in economy. Hes currently working on a study of africanamerican urban since the atlantic slave trade. Hes served on the boards and committees of numerous professional organizations such as the organization of american historians and past president of the labor and work class history association, an organization which is near and dear to me as one of my dissertations adviser and one of the founders of it. All right. Our next panel list is farah jasmin griffin. She is in the studies department in the william b. Ransed for professor of english and comparative literature and africanamerican studies at columbia university. Whew. You want to stand . They want to see you. There you go. All right. Griffin is of course the author of who set you flowing in africanamerican migration narrative, beloved sisters and loving friends, letters from rebecca prem miss of royal oaks in maryland and adi brown of hartford, connecticut, 1864 to 1868. Her Current Research is called harlem narrative, women ar tifl artists and politics during world war ii. We next have crystal sanders. She works at penn State University. Shes the author of numerous articles and essays who have appeared in a number of outlets such as the journal of southern history. Her first book, a chance for change, as started in the black struggles received several awards and was a finalist for the beckman hooks National Book awards. We also have a dear friend of mine, Maurice Hobson who san associate professor of africanamerican studies at Georgia State university. His Research Interests are grounded in the fields of africanAmerican History, 20th century history, comparative labor, africanamerican studies, urban and rule history, political economy and the like. Hes the author of the awardwinning book the legends of the black mecca, politics and class and the making of modern atlanta, which is published by university of North Carolina press. Next we have my dearest friend, my chicago sister, me mean sengstackerice. She is founder of the Robert Sengstacke foundation which happens to run right outside my front door. Sthe is also the founder and publisher of brownsville life, a lifestyle publication inspired by the historic arts culture, news and politics in the rich Historical Community of chicagoland. Myiti brits myiti brings a special area of expertise because she comes from a Famous Family who includes the photographer bobby sengstacke. And so without any further ado, id like to present i want to give the panelists some opening remarks, about ten minutes or so, and then we can move into the our conversation. You dont have to. If you like. Okay. Good evening. Can you hear me okay . Okay. I want to be say thanks for that introduction. This is an exciting moment for me, especially since im the senior most horn up here. Im really getting a great shot in the arm from my young cloo s colleagues and the work that they are doing. In some ways when i thought about what i was saying in my opening remakers grks i got exc about where the field is going in the future and where its been in the past, that i neglected to some of the more personal discussions about how i personally got into the field. But hopefully the question and answer period will give us a chance. So, please, bear with me as i say a few words about this field. Indeed, it is a privilege to join this panel on the africanamerican migration experience. Were not only celebrating a century of africanamerican migration history in north america, we are celebrating a century of research on the subject. During the early 20th century, they established the intellectual foundation for black migration studies as a scholarly field. They carefully documented black migration to rural, small town, and urban america as significant historical phenomena. They also challenged the prevailing racist portrait of black migrants as, quote, shiftless, lazy, and unstable in work and in residence. On the contrary, these founding fathers, so to speak, of black high aggregation studies declared, and i quote, these my grain migrants are not lazy, they are not schiffless, they are not unstable. In no uncertain terms, the founders of black migration studies enlisted their scholarship in the fight against White Supremacy both national and transnational. In the years following world war ii, however, a series of urban Community Studies opened a new chapter in black Migration Research. Historian osake and others documented the role of black migration and the rise of racially segregated communities across the urban northeast and midwest. In their view, the great migration nationalized americas race problem. It underscored the need for a nationwide, not just a regional, southern or regional civil rights and social justice movement. It required a nationwide battle to dismantle jim crowe north and south. Nonetheless, by the early 1980s, despite nearly 75 years of creative scholarship, our understanding of africanamerican migration remained incomplete. Numerous blind spots, gaps, and misconceptions undermined our comprehension of the black migration in historical perspective. Few studies considered the impact of black Population Movements on working class formation. Women, gender, intellectual and cultural issues. Nonetheless, a large body of historical scholarship transformed the picture of black migration during the closing decades of the 20th century and the opening years of the new millennium. The new scholarship was not limited to historians, sociologists, anthropologists, economists, journalists, and literary and cultural scholars all made distinct contribution to this literature. This scholarship made fundamental, conceptual, as well as empirical contribution to knowledge. It accented the complicated intersections of race, class, sexuality were gender, and power relations in the development of africanamerican migration history. Previous generations focus almost exclusively on the heyday of the great migration during the early to mid 20th century. But recent studies at our disposal today not only explore the unfolding post great migration years, but also reach back deep into the 19th, 18th, and 17th centuries in black migration history. But that is not all. Current studies cover a broad range of region, things, and topical areas. Recent topics include most notably the cost of estate, the environment, black childhood and youth, male and female, and deepening layers of africanamerican political, cultural, intellectual, and community life. At the same time, this scholarship engages a series of burning debates about the origins, causes, and consequences of black migration not only for black people, but also for the nation, its culture and its democratic institutions. In short, we have a century of innovative black Migration Research at our disposal. Indeed, given the richness and diversity of this scholarship, some Young Scholars just might feel that the odyssey is no longer there, so to speak, in Migration Research. But on the contrary. I believe that the recent outpouring of scholarship brings us to a great crossroads in africanamerican migration studies. The time seems ripe to set an agenda for the next generation of research. But as we set this agenda, as young people identify and launch fresh new projects on the subject, as they go about this next wave of scholarship, it is my hope as a senior scholar that we would take full advantage of the current moment to craft a variety of new sin that sises. In any case, im looking forward to a lively discussion about Agenda Setting for the next generation of africanamerican migration studies. Thank you. [ applause ] good afternoon. Good afternoon. The great migration continues to be of interest to scholars, students, and also to general readers. And i have to admit that i am always surprised when press and general readers respond to new works about the great migration. It is as if this phenomena gets discovered or rediscovered every ten or 20 years. On npr radio programs and book reviews, popular works, most often popular works, sometimes scholarly works, are greeted with a great sense of wonder and astonishment . Why didnt i know about this the hosts usually say. It is as if we live in a parallel universe. Writers and scholars continue to find the topic to be a rich one, the central importance to understanding black history and american cities. But nonacademic readers and critics seem entirely unfamiliar with the great migration even though it is so shaped contemporary american politics and culture. So shaped the worlds in which they live. The same expressions of surprise that greeted nicholas lehmans the Promised Land, returned for the warmth of other sons in 2010. In this past spring when the gifted soprano singer and her husband composer jason her ran presented two wings, the music of black america at cornegy hall, and in germany, they inspired the same kind of reaction. And a headline in the atlantic read, how art can double as historical corrective. But the couple were the first to say that their incredible production benefited greatly from the rich body of work produced by scholars and creative writers. Black artists have been writing migration narratives, singing migration songs, plaining migration series since 1902 when Paul Lawrence dunbar First Published world of the gods and continued to do so as other writers have done just this decade. So after all these years, im still surprised by their surprise. But having said all of this, i do think that the stories of the migrations that have made black america indeed have made america continue to provide rich material for scholars and continue to expire extraordinary works of art, some of which i hope we get a chance to talk about, which reveal new dimensions of a story that some of us, many of us in this room, but certainly not all of us thought we already knew. Thank you. [ applause ] good afternoon. Good after zbloon thank ynoo thank you all for not counting it robbery to be with us. Im glad to have the opportunity to share work from my forthcoming book project. I want to begin with a story. In 1949, paul jones, a 20yearold africanamerican man, applied for admission to the university of alabama law school. The dean of admission rejected jones application because the only publicly supported law school in alabama was for white students only. In an attempt to amile rate the situation, the dean encouraged jones to seek Legal Training outside of alabama with Financial Assistance from the state. In other words, the state of alabama offered to pay jones to study law anywhere else but in alabama as a way to preserve segregation. Jones, however, gave up his dream of studying law because he had no desire to leave the only home and community he had ever known. Thousands of other black southerners, however, did use state funds to leave home in search of the educations that their home states denied them locally on account of their race. These students migration stories are hidden in the shadows of the scholarship of the great migration that involved over 6 million African Americans in the first three quarters of the 20th century. Both migrations, the great one and the lesser known educational one, stemmed from African Americans desires for a better life and the inability to build one in the land of their birth. They both altered black life in america cities north and south. Many scholars black education had written about African Americans quest for elementary, secondary, and backa laureate education. But black efforts to secure graduate and professional training have been largely overlooked. As late as 1940, only nine black institutions in the south offered the masters degree and no black institution conferred the dr. Of philosophy degree. Rather than provide African Americans with the same instate opportunities for study at Public Institution thas that we provided to white citizens, they appropriated tax dollars to send black students out of state for graduate training. Missouri began these segregation scholarships in 1921. He by 1948, 16 other states had followed suit. Usually these jim crowe scholarships cover the differential between the cost of pursuing a course of study at the states white institutions and the cost of pursuing that same program of study out of state. Some states also pay travel expenses. Most of these states continued their segregation Scholarship Programs until the 1950s and 1960s der ni 1960s defying the 1938 United StatesSupreme Court decision in gaines v. Canada in which the court decreed that states had a responsibility to offer white and black citizens instate education. All too often when i tell people about this project, they say, well, it wasnt that bad since the Scholarship Recipients studied at some of the best institutions in the country, including harvard, the university of wisconsin, the university of chicago, and columbia university. Such a view, i argue, overlooks the emotional and psychological costs of being forced to leave the only land one knew to obtain an education. Traveling to or from the jim crowe south was often an experience in public humiliation for black passengers as bus drivers, train conductors, and white passengers degraded African Americans. Along some routes, bathroom facilities did not exist for black travelers who were then forced to relief themselves on the side of the road. Moreover, Northern Institution disease not roll out the proverbial welcome mat for black southerners. As so many in this room have pointed out, historical narratives of the great migration have tended to obscure the entrenched realities of northern racism. Those who received outofstate tuition assistance, routinely faced Racial Discrimination and social os trasism while studying abroad. At columbia university, black students were not allowed to go to the campus barber shops. At the university of kansas black students were barred from participating in athletics. The rotc, the debate team, the campus choir, and the student council. When many of these students at the university of kansas challenged the president , he essentially said, were letting you in, youre not even kansas citizens so you should be happy that youre here. Those who made the best of a bad situation and relocated out of state had to learn the rules of traveling while black to avoid ho hugh humiliation. A black man from winstonsalem, North Carolina, attended medical school at the university of michigan with the segregation scholarship from the tar heel state. Dr. Eaton i was going to show you a picture of him on the screen but technical difficulties are preventing me from doing that. But i should tell you that dr. Eaton recalled making 25 roundtrip trips between winstonsalem and ann arbor while he was in medical school and he often talked about having to move to the back of the bus when the bus entered the state of virginia. One of the other things many of these Scholarship Recipients talked about was the Financial Hardship that endured. Durham resident charles ray attended the university of Southern California for a ph. D in english language and literature. After completing his coursework, ray relocated back to North Carolina and only traveled to california when necessary. He traveled to california for a few days in may of 1952 to defend his dissertation before returning home. Once back in North Carolina, he learned that the university of Southern California required candidates for the ph. D degree to appear in person to receive their diplomas. This meant that ray needed to travel to california again, but the stipulations of North Carolinas segregation Scholarship Program only provided recipients with one roundtrip fare per academic year. North carolina denied rays request for assistance to attend his mandatory commencement. Somehow he came up with the necessary funds and he became the first African American to receive a doctorate in english from usc. He later joined the faculty at North Carolina college for negroes where he remained for the next quarter of a century. There are many rich educational migration stories like this one. If i had the time i wou